


a hymn for augustine

by chlorinetrifluoride



Series: snakes in the water [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Second War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 03:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10677021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/chlorinetrifluoride
Summary: It's 1995 and Lord Voldemort has returned. Albus Dumbledore has organized the Order of the Phoenix once more, in the wake of this event. As a member of the original Order, you, Augustine Greengrass, have returned to try to help defeat Voldemort all over again. But you're not happy about certain arrangements. In fact, "not happy" would be something of an understatement to describe your displeasure with the status quo. Still, you swallow your anger for the most part, and try to ready yourself for whatever has to be done. Later, when things between your side and the other side grow openly hostile, you reflect that you may not have done nearly enough.





	a hymn for augustine

**Author's Note:**

> yeah yeah sequel to those of great ambition that i'm starting even though the former fic isn't halfway done yet  
> whatever  
> i got this  
> you should probably read the rest of the fics in this series before you move onto this one, otherwise you won't understand much  
> the warnings are fairly tame now, but they'll increase as the story goes on  
> the same thing for the character list

**_June 1995 - Augustine Greengrass_ **

You’ve always been one to rise early these days, given the nightmares you have more often than not, so when you get a floo-call at four in the morning, when you’ve just woken up, you’re expecting… well, you’re not sure what you’re expecting. Someone with the wrong fireplace, maybe.  

Your department at the Ministry isn’t important enough to warrant anyone contacting you so early in the morning.

So you do a double take when you see Auror Shacklebolt’s head in your fireplace.

_What in the name of Salazar and all his heirs…?_

Please don’t let it be something bad about Calypso, oh please God. You don't see how it could be.

She’s gained so much ground under the care of one of the best mind healers on the continent. Most of the time, now, she’s oriented to where she is, what year it is, who everyone that visits is, and how much time has passed. And she’s responded to this knowledge by falling into a depression, because most of her friends have died. You don’t blame her. You visit her several times a week, the both of you occasionally reminiscing, but more frequently sitting in total silence. Even though you’re both miserable, at least you can be miserable together.

The healer himself was a silver haired man with a trimmed beard, who had come all the way from Austria’s equivalent to St. Mungo’s to treat her. Apparently, Bellatrix and her lot had not been the first to torture people into insanity. There were a great deal of cases not unlike Calypso’s, back during Grindelwald’s reign of terror. Healer Steiner worked with these people, to varying degrees of success, once the dust settled.

And from the beginning, he stated that her case was promising. She had retained the ability to speak, and could hold a coherent conversation, even if she seldom knew the date, and almost always forgot what you told her after a while. After two years of intensive treatment, Calypso had progressed enough to be discharged from St. Mungo’s, to the care of her uncle and his house elf.

“How can I help you, Auror Shacklebolt?” you ask, here, in the present.

And for his part, Shacklebolt has only one thing to say to you, something you’re still a bit too groggy to parse fully.

“He’s back.”

You invite him in properly, and put on some coffee. You need to wake up, and fast. You can barely tell up from down at the moment. He looks tired himself. Coffee for both of you, then.

“Who’s back?” you finally ask him, the two of you sipping from your respective cups.

“Lord Voldemort.”

If this is a joke, it’s an awful, offensive one, and Auror Shacklebolt never struck you as being one for jokes of that caliber. So that leaves either him being under some kind of hex, or the idea of it being actually true. You narrowly avoid dropping your cup and spilling hot coffee all over yourself.

“Hold on. _What?”_ you ask. "Have you been Confunded ?"

Auror Shacklebolt shakes his head, puts his hands flat on the table, and gazes down solemnly.

“It happened after the last task of the Triwizard Tournament, to my understanding. The Triwizard Cup was a portkey, which brought Harry Potter and his co-champion, Cedric Diggory, to some sort of graveyard. And then, with help from his followers, Lord Voldemort was able to return to a corporeal form, with full power. Diggory was killed in the process.”

You know about Diggory's death, at least. You read that much in the Prophet. They said it was some kind of freak accident that took place during the final task.

(You think of the old reserve Seeker, and later Slytherin Chaser, from your Hogwarts days, Sophia Diggory.

Maybe you should check on her, and see if she needs anything. Cedric was her nephew, and she was the one who taught him everything he needed to know about a broomstick. The last time you talked to her, she was giddy that he'd been selected as one of Hogwarts's representatives in the Triwizard Tournament, though annoyed that Harry Potter had also been chosen. She assumed he'd found a way to cheat his way in.

Privately and honestly, you thought that if half the stories surrounding Harry Potter's time at Hogwarts were true, you had a hard time believing he did such a thing, and felt more sorry for him than anything else.)

You know for a fact that various people have been trying to resurrect the Dark Lord for the last several years. That said, you'd doubted they'd succeed. While you spent all your years of peacetime dreading something like this actually taking place, now you find yourself asking, _“How could this have happened?”_

Naive as it sounds, you thought Dumbledore had everything covered. 

And, another sentiment bubbles up, a holdover from your younger, more selfish years: _"What's going to happen to me?"_

You are a known former Order member. If he's returned, the Dark Lord isn't about to invite you over for tea.

And why is Auror Shacklebolt even here?

You don’t ask him any of these questions, and he doesn’t answer them, save the last, which he seems to anticipate.

“Professor Dumbledore sent me on assignment to round up a few members of what remains of the original Order, so that we might have a meeting on how to proceed,” he says. “You, quite obviously, are among those members.”

You can’t believe it. You don’t want to believe it. The Dark Lord is gone, vanquished, faded, gone straight to hell. People don’t just come back from the dead. It’s impossible.

_(Was the Dark Lord really human in the end, though?)_

You recall the last conversation you had with Horatio Avery, several months ago, when you needed to pick up a vial of Dreamless Sleep from the apothecary in Diagon Alley.

Although your close friendship had been fractured by certain revelations a few years back, he seemed to trust you again. Certainly, your hatred for him had simmered down, though it would never truly die. He led you into the back room of the apothecary, rolled up his left sleeve, and showed you the Mark on his arm.

“This thing’s getting darker, Augustine,” he said, unable to keep the minor current of terror out of his voice. “I don’t know what that means, exactly.”

You put your hands in your pockets and leaned back against the adjacent wall, unsure of how to proceed.

“Don’t look at me, Avery. I don’t have one of those.” However, even after years of being on different sides, of knowing you were on different sides, you didn’t have it in your heart to lie to him. “It can’t be anything good, I can hazard that much of a guess.”

Avery nodded slowly, still mired in his personal fears. He gazed around the room and cast several wordless spells.

“You can keep a secret, right?” he asked, then.

“I have always kept your secrets,” you returned.

“That you have. I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“That never ends well for you,” you fired back, with a flicker of your old banter.

He snorted, but his expression was quick to grow serious again.

“Y’know, sometimes, I wish I hadn’t…” he began. “Sometimes, I wish I didn’t…”

You didn’t want to enter this line of conversation.

“The dead don’t return because we want them to,” you said, by way of ending it.

You knew what he was referencing. That skirmish in Edinburgh. The one that ended in you having one fewer sibling. Your second youngest. The one you and your brothers took pains to protect.

Dymphna Greengrass, who stole and rode around on your broomstick during holidays, who annoyed you whenever possible, who flirted badly with Horatio Avery, and who joined the Order the same day as her 17th birthday.

When she found out that you were in it too, she almost keeled over from shock.

And she proved her worth as a Gryffindor, by taking on reckless, dangerous assignments. She could duel her way out of almost anything. Almost.

“I’m a pureblood and everything,” she said to you, a few hours after she’d joined. “So the other side would never suspect me of being one of you lot, ‘long as I’m under Polyjuice.”

One of three Death Eaters could have cast the Killing Curse that hit her all those years ago. Mulciber was one. Selwyn was one. Avery was one. You personally don’t think Avery did it, mostly because he always found ways to avoid dueling to kill, but he could have.

He could have, and that was enough.

You don't think even _he_ knew who did it.

“Why’d I ever join up?” he asked you, in this back room. “I’ve been asking myself that question for the last sixteen years.”

Now, in the present, you ask yourself the same question about the Order. Not that you won’t fight back against the Dark Lord if he really has returned, but you’ve lost so many people. The Death Eaters decimated your ranks during the war. How the bloody hell are you going to combat him when most of the people who dueled alongside you are either dead, old, or incapacitated?

“Auror Shacklebolt, I’m going to ask you a question,” you say to the man across the table from you. “And I need you to be straight with me.”

“Of course, Augustine.”

“How many of us are even left?”

“A fair few. And there are younger people who have joined, as well.”

“How young?”

“I think some of them are barely old enough to remember Voldemort’s fall,” he says, with a certain amount of disquiet.

Well, it’s nice to know not everyone’s dead.

Still, something needles at you. Does Albus Dumbledore ever grow tired of sending ill-prepared young people into battle? Didn’t he get the message when most of the people in the Order who were around your age ultimately ended up as cannon fodder, the first time you tried to beat this evil tosser into the ground?

If you didn’t hate the Dark Lord more than you hate Dumbledore, you’d refuse Auror Shacklebolt’s request outright. And you have more reasons than that to refuse, too.

You think of your family. You think of your nieces, Astoria and Daphne. They’re both in Hogwarts now. And oh, how Astoria reminds you of Dymphna, even if she’s in Slytherin. What if the Death Eaters decide to use them to get to you? They certainly could.

But there’s a chance they’ll do that no matter what you do. It’s no secret that you were a member of the first iteration of the Order of the Phoenix.

Your stomach ties itself into knots.

“Fine, then, I’m in,” you say, thankful that you keep wards and shielding charms around your apartment constantly, so nobody could possibly eavesdrop on this. What’s it Auror Moody always said? _Constant vigilance?_ You’ve taken a leaf from his book. “Where are we headed?”

“A safe house.”

Auror Shacklebolt is far from old, but recent events have clearly aged him. You try to switch the conversation to lighter fare, and to something you’ve been meaning to ask him.

“How’s Cal doing?”

“She heard me talking to Emmeline Vance, yesterday. I think you know her.”

“I do.”

“So Calypso’s gotten it into her head that if Voldemort’s really back, she wants to help take him down herself.”

Some things never change. At all.

“Is she stable enough for that?” you want to know.

You doubt it. Not even Healer Steiner can work miracles on that level.

“Absolutely _not.”_

You snort, faintly amused, even in the wake of all this desolation.

“Better be careful with her. If she gets hold of her wand, you know she’ll try to do _something_.”

“Not a chance,” Auror Shacklebolt says wearily. “I keep her wand locked up, for just that reason. Originally, I'd been carrying it with me, but..." He trails off for a moment. "I want her to be able to access it in case something happens, especially now. And Darcy’s still caring for her. She’s safe.”

You don’t bother to remind him that she was once well-versed in wandless magic, and could probably find a way to open the lock if she put her mind to it. You figure he must know that already, which means he has even stronger magic in place. He might be the only person who knows her better than you do.

After a little more conversation, he hands you a folded sheet of parchment that you give a cursory read. Something about an address called Number 12 Grimmauld Place. You follow him into your floo, both anticipating and dreading the current state of the Order you’ll find once you reach your destination.

It’s both not as bad as you thought it would be, and yet it’s somehow worse. Almost all of the old guard has turned up.

And there are quite a few young faces gathered around the table in this filthy house, though your eyes linger on the girl with the bubblegum pink hair. Hair aside, she so resembles Andromeda, back when Andy was head girl in your first year.

She's Andromeda's child, isn’t she? The one she had with Ted Tonks? You don't quite remember what they named her.

And then, there are two Weasley children, at least what you think are Weasley children.

You have no idea what their names might be. You think Charlie is one. You don’t know the name of the other.

There are more young people, too, but ones you don't even slightly recognize.

Dumbledore sits at the fore of the table, acknowledging you and Auror Shacklebolt once you arrive.

“Good morning, Mr. Greengrass, Mr. Shacklebolt. Do sit down.”

Auror Shacklebolt has a greeting far more courteous for the headmaster than you do. You just give the man a half-wave of recognition.

You’re too angry, watching these faces flicker in the candlelight, to do anything else. You don't see their faces anymore. You see the faces of all the young adults in the original Order. Faces you couldn't possibly _see_ , because they're the faces of people who have passed on. 

You remember that afternoon so many years ago, where Calypso almost cursed Dumbledore, for letting seventeen year old Leo Travers spy for the Order, and now you understand, by yourself, and for yourself exactly what she might have feeling. But this is worse. You've never been so angry.

“Mr. Greengrass, are you quite alright?” Dumbledore asks.

You take a sip from the firewhiskey and tonic in front of you.

Liquid courage, Corona called it. Corona Yaxley, who died when she was twenty-one.

So when you incline your head to face Dumbledore, your face is twisted with fury.

“I see you haven’t let go of your penchant for recruiting child soldiers,” you say.

Remus Lupin, who has seated himself at your side, being one of the few friends you have left from the old days, puts a steadying hand on your shoulder.

“Everyone here is seventeen and older,” he says quietly. “We’re all adults, Augustine.”

“Yeah, how much older than seventeen? Nineteen? Twenty? Twenty-one?” You let your glass drop to the table with a clatter. The glass cracks, and you don't mend it. “Old enough to understand that there’s a good chance we won’t survive whatever happens next? ‘Cause _we_ sure as hell didn't back then, I'll tell you that much!"

You start counting up the dead, and the damaged beyond repair, on your fingers. "Leo, Corona, Julius, Calypso, Marlene, Dorcas, Lily, James, Fabian, Gideon, Frank, Alice, and fuck, even my sister! And everyone else. Have you forgotten them, Professor? Are you just planning to let Voldemort mow down this generation, too?”

Everyone at the table has turned to stare at you now. You realize that this is the first time in your life that you have called Lord Voldemort by his name.

A woman not far from your age, with ginger hair, looks as if she might weep. You recognize her as Molly Prewett. No, hold on. Molly Weasley. You shouldn't have mentioned the Prewetts, you think belatedly.

“Augustine,” Auror Shacklebolt says, by way of placating you.

“You weren’t even in the Order the first time around!” you shout at the darker man. “Not until later on! Do you even know how many times Cal almost died? She put her life into this cause, and look what she got!”

Shacklebolt has nothing to say to that.

The figure who enters the room next shocks you, even though Auror Shacklebolt had brought you up to speed with the fact that Sirius Black had been framed for his crimes, and that it was Pettigrew all along. Just as well, Pettigrew always annoyed the shit out of you.

But fuck, does Sirius look old. You thought you’d aged since the end of the first war, but he’s gaunt and thin, all his good looks evaporated, with an air of barely concealed despair about him, as if some of the essence of the Dementors clung to him even after he escaped.

"Thought I heard your calm musings on the current state of affairs, Greengrass," he says, with a wan smile.

"Oh, sod the hell off."

“We all lost someone, Augustine,” he goes on. “Some of us more than others. You _know_ that.”

You nod, calming down by a bare degree.

You were never capable of getting enraged for long; that was always Cal's thing.

Now, you're just sad.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" you ask.

"No," Sirius answers. "But you might want to keep it in mind."

Dumbledore’s long fingers drum against the table, thoughtfully.

“You raise a valid point, Mr. Greengrass. Death is not to be taken lightly, particularly those of the young. And I do not intend to take any such matters lightly.”

You shake your head.

“Easy for you to say when you’re still alive,” you say hollowly.

You don't pay much attention to the proceedings after that. You catch enough to understand that the Ministry and the Prophet are starting a campaign of misinformation as to what happened after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament.

Once the Order meeting comes to a close, you and Remus follow Sirius to one of the back rooms in this house. Sirius takes out an ancient pack of muggle cigarettes, and digs a bottle of firewhiskey out from behind a chair. God Almighty, he drinks more than Corona did. He passes both around, laughing when you put the wrong end of the cigarette in your mouth at first.

"Why would I ever figure out how to smoke one of these things?" you ask. "I didn't flaunt my blood traitor status like you did."

Sirius cackles.

"As if you weren't more of a blood traitor than I was, Greengrass. At least I had the excuse of being in Gryffindor."

You were never friends in Hogwarts, but years of repeatedly dodging death via bigots in silver masks has a way of bringing people together.

"You certainly caused a stir at the meeting," Remus says to you, once he's had a drink or two.

"Shacklebolt should have been here to see it," Sirius insists. "Calypso, I mean. She would have given him a standing ovation."

"Definitely," Remus agrees. "If not joined in, herself."

Sirius exhales a great cloud of smoke, and takes another swig from the bottle.

"He's right, though, I gotta admit."

You never thought you'd live to see the day that Sirius Black would declare you right about anything, except for the time when you two were ranking Order members in terms of attractiveness, almost twenty years ago. And even then, that ended in an argument. Granted, you two were wasted at the time, but still. 

"I am?"

Sirius nods.

"These kids have no clue what they're getting into. I mean, a few of them might have an inkling. Tonks is an Auror and all that," he points out. "But they haven't seen death before. Not like how we have."

"You think it'll be as bad as last time?" Remus asks.

Sirius ponders this for a while.

"No. I think it'll be even worse."

You think of the night you got inducted into the Order, the night that Cal almost didn't.

_(“Look on the bright side, you’re not gonna end up getting killed like the rest of us,” Black said to Calypso._

_“A right ray of sunshine aren’t you?” Corona asks.)_

You repeat Corona's old comment back to Sirius.

He laughs, mirthlessly.

"I'm right, though," he says.

"How do you reckon that?" you ask.

"Way I see it, the first time You-Know-Who tried to take over, he was just testing things out," Sirius says. "I mean, yeah, he was intent on his plans, but this time around? He's had a while to figure out where mistakes were made, and how to avoid them. This is where the game changes."

"The fact that the Ministry refuses to recognize the danger isn't going to help things either," Remus adds. "At least last time, they actually acknowledged that he and his followers were committing these acts. But the politics are not in our favor at this point in time."

You pour yourself another drink.

"I think they'll have to notice, after a while. It took them a while to notice last time, remember?" You sip from your glass. "The question then becomes, how many people have to die before they do?"

 None of you wants to get close enough to that question to answer it. You're almost sorry you asked it. You three sit in an uncomfortable silence, after that.


End file.
